Delays & Rising Costs: India’s Bullet Train Project Hits Turbulence With Partner Japan

India’s first bullet train was supposed to showcase a new era of India-Japan cooperation, but more than a decade after the two countries signed the agreement, not a single passenger has travelled on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route. Now, the project is facing a different problem: friction over how the railway should actually be built and operated. Japan was expected to provide Shinkansen trains, signalling and the Operation Control Centre, but India is developing its own B28 high-speed train for the initial phase and has moved towards an international, open-standard signalling system. Japan has raised concerns about whether this hybrid system can deliver the safety and reliability associated with Shinkansen, while India wants greater flexibility and domestic capability. So this is no longer just a story about delays — it is a test of how India and Japan reconcile two very different visions of high-speed rail.